Islamophobia making US Muslims ill

A University of California-San Francisco researcher says that Islamophobia in the United States is literally a public health issue as it’s making Muslims ill.

Dr. Goleen Samari of the school’s Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health wrote about this issue two years ago and says she received “an onslaught of hate mail and packages” along with “countless threats” to her family, according to media reports.

Samari also furthers the narrative of the Muslim ban, the upholding of which by the US Supreme Court “has further cemented” hatred of those who practice Islam.

It’s not hard to understand how facing demonization and fearing that you might become the victim of a hate crime would be detrimental to your health. A recent study finds that religious discrimination targeting Muslims is significantly associated with psychological distress, symptoms of depression, higher levels of fear and anxiety, an unhealthier diet and worse blood pressure. Among women with Arabic names in California who gave birth within 6 months of 9/11, there was an increase in premature births and low birth-weight babies. There was no such increase for other women.

Given the media narrative before and since Donald Trump’s election, one could easily see that Muslims suffer the most religiously based hate-related actions and crimes.